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Local school districts using one-to-one technology to bring world to students

By Amy Bounds, Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
08/16/2014 10:00:00 AM MDT

Updated:
08/17/2014 10:28:50 AM MDT

Sixth-grader Chris Gonzalez works on his St. Vrain Valley School District issued iPad mini as his mother, Monica Zamora, watches on Wednesday at Trail Ridge Middle School in Longmont. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

St. Vrain Valley learning technology plan

As part of the St. Vrain Valley School District's learning technology plan, iPad minis will be distributed to all schools and most students on the following schedule:

2014: Coal Ridge and Westview middle school students piloted the program; all middle school teachers received iPad minis

2014-15: All middle school students and all students at Lyons Middle/Senior High; all preschool and kindergarten teachers; teachers at Frederick, Longmont, Mead and Silver Creek high schools

Trail Ridge Middle students and parents recently wound their way through a series of stations at the Longmont school to set up their new, district provided iPad minis so they're ready to go when school starts on Monday.

"It's going to be really awesome for the kids," predicted parent Joanna Chavez, who has an eighth-grader and sixth-grader at the school. "Everything they do now is with electronics. They can't wait to get them."

District officials said the comprehensive distribution process, with about 6,200 iPad minis given out at middle schools throughout St. Vrain, was designed to give students and their parents a solid overview now that every middle schooler will be using the devices in classes.

"We're very intentional in making this a very open process," said Joe McBreen, the district's chief information officer.. "We're all in this together to educate our kids and empower them for the 21st century."

He said the iPad distribution is part of an overall plan to get the best technology into the hands of students and reduce the growing digital divide between students who have access to technology at home and those who don't.

"Learning should happen any time, any place," he said.

'It's not one device for everything'

St. Vrain's learning technology plan, funded through the 2012 mill levy override, allocates $2.2 million a year for all students in sixth through 12th grades to have their own iPad minis over the next three school years.

In the fourth year, each elementary classroom will get a set of six iPads for students to share. Phasing in the distribution, officials said, creates a sustainable program by staggering when the devices need to be replaced.

St. Vrain's plan also includes updates to computer labs, distributing Chromebook "carts" to schools that will serve as mobile computer labs, and updates to classroom desktops.

"It's not one device for everything," McBreen said. "We were very strategic."

The plan was developed by a committee of 33 district employees, including teachers and principals. The committee started by developing a vision of what learning should look like in the classroom, including the technology requirements of the new state standards.

Then they visited Chromebook schools, iPad schools and schools with traditional laptops and created a list of tasks to evaluate each one. The iPads won because of their cost, ease of use and strong performance in creating media and reading digital tests.

The Boulder Valley School District is working on its own one-to-one technology initiative, with plans for a pilot at Centaurus High School in the fall. The goal, said Boulder Valley's Chief Information Officer Andrew Moore, is to eventually provide Chromebooks to all students from third-grade through high school, with younger students getting iPads.

Louisville's Monarch High School was the first to try a one-to-one initiative in Boulder Valley and now is starting its fourth year of requiring students to tote laptops or other devices. The 25 or so students who can't afford their own laptops borrow one from the school.

"Now, students have information at the touch of a finger," she said.

She said teachers are continuing to find ways to use the devices to expand learning opportunities, including having students Skype with someone in another country rather than just reading about that country or creating reports that include video clips and links to original documents.

"We want to take learning to another level," she said.

While Monarch's program is proving successful, district officials said, there are too many families that can't afford devices to make the model work at high schools districtwide.

So the district is trying the pilot at Centaurus, where all the school's ninth-graders will receive district Chromebooks around Thanksgiving. When they graduate, the district plans to gift the Chromebooks to them.

"It just further opens up students' ability to communicate, to do research, to take their learning outside of the school walls," said Centaurus Principal Rhonda Haniford. "By no means should learning only be set up in the classroom or in school."

Parents 'in charge' of children's devices

In St. Vrain Valley, two middle schools — Longmont's Westview and Firestone's Coal Ridge — served as pilot schools in the spring for the iPad initiative.

Westview language arts teacher Karen Clancy-Cribby, who has taught for 22 years, described using iPads in the classroom as "transformative."

"It went so wonderfully," she said. "I was never afraid of the technology because I knew students would figure it out with me."

She said she used the iPads to allow students to practice basic concepts, like grammar rules, at home at their own pace and to go more in depth on more complex topics. Using iPads also allowed her to give students more choices in reading materials, increasing engagement, she said.

On the distribution days at St. Vrain's Trail Ridge, students learned how to set up email and calendars, access the app store and download digital books, while parents learned how to set controls that include turning off app downloads and limiting access to social media.

Michelle Bourgeois, St. Vrain's project manager for the learning technology plan, said said parents are still in charge. They can turn off the ability to add apps, restrict access to social media sites and set other limits.

"This is a partnership," she said. "Parents can learn, too."

The district even created two online training sessions for parents, one on Internet safety and the other on setting healthy limits.

"We want the kids to learn the ropes of what it means to be a good digital citizen," she said. "We want our kids to be good communicators and to learn to meet their own learning needs."

A concern over decrease in one-on-one time

Trail Ridge students generally expressed excitement about getting a cool new gadget, as did most of their parents.

Some parents also had concerns, including that their kids would lose or damage the devices or spend too much time buried in a device instead of talking with their teachers and classmates.

Denise McNabb said her technologically savvy daughter is thrilled, while she's both glad to see the district embrace technology and concerned about how teachers will manage the devices.

"My worry is students will get less one-on-one with the teachers, with everyone stuck looking at a screen," she said.

To address the concern about loss or damage, the district is offering insurance for a $35 fee and provided rugged cases and screen protectors.

District officials said individual teachers also will determine when and how to use the iPads to enhance learning, but won't use them to take the place of teaching and discussions.

"We encouraged teachers to think about the best way to use iPads for learning," Michelle said. "It's just one more resource they have to meet the needs of the kids."

Trail Ridge science teacher Liz Sims heard some of the parent concerns as she helped with the iPad set-up, but assured parents the initiative will be good for students.

She estimated that half her students don't have computer access at home.

"This is huge for our kids," she said. "The digital divide just gets bigger and bigger when one kid is on a computer all night and one kid gets 30 minutes on a computer in school. This is such an equalizer."

She said she went through the district's 20 online training modules this summer to learn how to best to use the iPads in her classroom, making plans to put all the classwork online and have her students blog with others from around the world on environmental issues.

She said the iPads also will make it easier to give different work to students with special needs or who are learning English — without the rest of the class knowing they're doing something different.

Sixth-grader Cassie Style works on her St. Vrain Valley School District issued iPad mini with her parents, Greg Styles and Kim Styles, on Wednesday at Trail Ridge Middle School in Longmont. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

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